Bright, Hot Sun
by XXII
Summary: Reid struggles to understand an agent the BAU brings in to help on a case, befuddled by both her secretive behavior and his own feelings. First fic, and there are things that I've totally BSed. If you notice any and know better, please tell me. R
1. Chapter 1

"_All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts[.]" – William Shakespeare_

Ondine squinted into the sight of her rifle. From her perch on the rooftop she had a clear view of everything in the town square, from the shiny new bank at one end to the colonial church at the other. A man was pacing in front of the church, speaking and waving his arms dramatically, sallow-faced townspeople huddled behind him. Hostages.

According to the local police, the man had been considered, until recently, a harmless eccentric. He was a religious fundamentalist with psychological problems that had come to light with the murder of the town priest. They'd disagreed on issues of theology, argued, and the priest had wound up dead in a pew. Unfortunately, no proof could be found to tie the man to the murder, so he'd gone free, and now he held the entire congregation captive, all the while preaching his anomalous word, in front of the church.

Ondine had been placed on the roof of the tallest building in the square, ordered to keep him in her sights, but not to shoot unless instructed. She'd been waiting for the go-ahead for over an hour. Negotiations weren't going well. The lead negotiator had tried everything in the book, and had now simply disintegrated to pleading. The man paid him no notice, pacing and waving his arms like he was performing the lead in a melodrama, just as he had been since he'd taken his captives.

A voice crackled over her ear-monitor. "Agent Gabor; Agent Hotchner," the voice identified itself, "Agents Morgan, Prentiss and I are going to try to disarm the suspect. If he threatens any of the hostages and you have the shot, take it."

"10-4," replied Ondine though the small radio on her wrist. She hunched back into position. She had a clear shot, just as she'd had all day, only now she had permission to shoot. This part always made her nervous. What if she missed, and the suspect was able to harm someone? What if she hit someone else? In this way she felt an odd kind of kinship with the pacing man below; she felt like an actor playing a part. She wasn't a sniper, sniping was just a part she played in the story of her life to be able to pay the bills.

Sweat beaded on her brow, adding to the sweat that was already on her back and in her armpits from the hot midday sun. Through the sight of her stealth recon scout, she could see Hotchner, Morgan and Prentiss, guns cocked and poised to fire, approaching the suspect. They were speaking, but Ondine was too far away to hear any of what they said.

The suspect obviously did, however, for he immediately stopped speaking and waving his arms, and pointed the semi-automatic machine gun he'd had strapped to his back at them. The danger to her fellow agents made her finger twitch involuntarily on the trigger, the familial affection for all agents forged by time in the FBI academy causing instinctual alarms to go off in her consciousness. She was a professional, however, and so resisted the urge to shoot. Her instructions had been to wait until one of the hostages was threatened, and that was what she would do.

The calm, steady gait the agents below kept as they approached the suspect reminded her that they were professionals, too. They would also shoot him if they needed to. It reassured Ondine to know that anyone who didn't have to was unlikely to die that day.

And then it happened. Apparently, Agent Hotchner had finally gotten too close, because the man reached behind himself and grabbed the first hostage he could reach. The small boy quailed as the muzzle of the gun that had been pointing at the agents turned to lean against his temple. Ondine could see the suspect speaking, and she didn't need to hear him to know what he was saying.

A voice crackled franticly over the monitor, but Ondine didn't hear it. Her finger pulled the trigger. A soft zapping noise escaped the silencer that gagged the mouth of her rifle as the bullet rushed towards the suspect. It made perfect contact, exploding through the man's frontal cortex, exiting his occipital lobe and finally burying itself in the dirt behind him. The lifeless body crumpled around the gore-spattered boy.

A wave of relief washed over Ondine, but it was quickly followed by repugnance at what she had done. Another person had died by her hand.

Far below, the little boy began to wail under the bright, hot Nevada sun.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Alright, I probably ought to have done this with the first chapter, but I should mention that this is going to be a weekly fic. I'm going to try to update every week on Thursday in the afternoon, or, failing that, whenever the chapter after the current one is completed. (Which means I've already completed the next chapter, and am just withholding it from you. Muahahahaha!)

Also, I'd like to thank the one person who reviewed last week; it definitely warmed the cockles of my heart. So, thank you cedricsowner. You are awesome.

Next week's chapter is longer, I promise.

* * *

"_To defeat them, we must first understand them." - __Elie Wiesel_

One year to the day since the Nevada incident, Hotch was sitting in his office looking over the newest case file. Apparently, a man was shooting people through the head in San Francisco. He sighed heavily and looked out his window into the Bullpen. Prentiss and Morgan were laughing about something with Garcia and flicking pieces of paper at Reid's desk. Hotch had a feeling they had already left something of a more sinister nature, but didn't move to confirm his suspicion. He figured the less he knew, the better.

The young doctor himself was nowhere in sight, and it took Hotch a moment to remember that this was the time of year that the FBI took it's youngest and most interesting members, so usually Reid and someone else, to local universities to give presentations on joining the FBI academy. This year, as most years, Rossi was going to accompany Reid, so he was probably in Rossi's office going over last minute presentation ideas and jokes (after several years of humiliating himself, Rossi had finally decided to put Reid out of some of his misery, forcing the socially inept genius to revise and rehearse any "jokes" he was going to perform).

_So much for this year's presentation_, thought Hotch as he stood to call everyone into the conference room.

Once assembled, the team went straight to work. Hotch took over what would normally have been JJ's job, her loss smarting even a year after her move to the Pentagon, and introduced the newest UNSUB to the team. "We have a man shooting people in the forehead in San Francisco, California. There have been witnesses to the deaths, but no one can remember seeing the shooter. His victims are all over the map, ranging from a cheerleader at a local high school to an elderly parishioner with a thyroid problem." A picture of a young, pretty blonde in the midst of a high kick, and another of an elderly, smiling black man with a massive goiter on his neck, filled the screen of the smartboard. "There have been thirteen murders so far-"

"Thirteen?" interrupted Prentiss, frowning as photos of the other victims joined the two that were already onscreen, "And the local PD didn't think to call us 'till now?"

Hotch scowled at her. "The murders have all taken place over the course of a month. They called as soon as they detected the pattern. It's the bureaucracy that's slowed us down."

This time it was shock that made the team members interrupt. "A month?" repeated Morgan, staring at the victims' lively faces.

"That's one every two days," said Reid, glancing at Morgan, then back to the victims.

Rossi sighed and looked at Hotch. "So, we've got a guy shooting people in the head, no witnesses, no motive, no victimology pattern."

"Shooting people in the forehead is a pretty specific MO, though," interceded Prentiss, as crime scene photos replaced the happy, smiling faces.

Hotch nodded. "He's using a Desert Tactical Arms SRS sniper rifle to shoot his victims. Bullets were found behind the bodies, buried in the ground or walls."

"So he's not cleaning up," said Morgan, "and his victims have nothing in common. You think he's disorganized?"

"No," answered Rossi, "A disorganized killer wouldn't be able to do that kind of shooting. He doesn't collect the bullets because he doesn't need to. This guy's smart. He knows no one saw him."

"But now we know what gun he's using," argued Prentiss.

"So what?" Rossi grouched, "That rifle is used all over the U.S. The military uses it, and you can buy it right off the manufacturer's website."

Morgan shook his head. "You don't do that kind of shooting without some sort of training. He has to have a military background."

"Even so," said Rossi, "how do we catch him? He could be a retired veteran or an AWOL sniper. We still have no way of telling who this guy is or where he'll strike next. All we know is that sometime within the next day or so, someone else is going to wind up with a bullet hole in their forehead."

A brief, foreboding silence enveloped the table, each profiler lost in his or her own thoughts.

"We need to get over there and interview the witnesses ourselves," Rossi stated, with an air of finality. Everyone nodded except Reid, who was still staring at the photos on the screen.

"Wheels up in an hour," said Hotch, feeling defeated. He hated walking away from the conference room feeling like they hadn't gotten anywhere.

As the rest of the team started to rise, Reid reached out absentmindedly with his hand as if to hold them back. "Wait, wait, wait," he said, his words coming quickly in an effort to keep up with his brain, "Look at where each victim was shot."

"In the forehead," replied Morgan, frowning at his young colleague, "Reid, we've been over this, man."

"But it's not just the forehead. Look at them! Every single one has a bullet wound_ between the eyes_. It's not right in the middle in every one, but it's in the vicinity."

Everyone looked back at the smartboard. Reid was right. They hadn't noticed before because the way each victim had fallen, and way the blood and brain matter had dispersed distorted the look of the wounds. A wave of dread swept over Hotch. "We're going to need some help with this one," he said.


	3. Chapter 3

"_[B]eautiful women don't need to know about men. It's the men who have to know about beautiful women." – Katherine Hepburn_

"I'm going to call someone in on this one," said Hotch as the team filed out of the conference room.

They nodded. They knew they needed the input of someone who was, or had been, a sniper to be able to catch this UNSUB. They didn't have time to research the procedure surrounding sniping nor did they have the expertise to accurately understand how the UNSUB planned the path of the shot whilst remaining unseen. Brining in a consultant was just easier.

"What about that girl who came with us last year?" suggested Prentiss, thinking of the only sniper she had ever worked closely with.

Morgan grinned. "Oh, yeah, that was one fine, scary lady," he said, remembering the beautiful, but frightening woman that had shot the UNSUB on that case. "What was her name?"

"Supervisory Special Agent Ondine Gabor, New York field office," replied Reid as if he was reading from a transcript.

Morgan stared blankly at him. "You weren't there. How do you know that?"

Reid stared blankly back. "I read your paperwork."

* * *

On the BAU's private jet, Spencer found himself seated across from SSA Gabor. Simply put, she was intimidating. When she'd met them at the airport (where they'd picked her up), she'd made eye contact and then held it for too long as if issuing a challenge. It had made even Morgan uncomfortable. She was not verbose, but her body language, not to mention her profession, spoke to her being an alpha female. When Hotch had introduced him, Spencer had received the full force of her rare, pine green eyes (a trait she shared with only two percent of the rest of the world) boring into him and sizing him up in a matter of seconds. They'd grown cold when, instead of shaking her outstretched hand, he waved at her as he did all new acquaintances. He'd had to forcibly suppress the involuntary shiver that had wracked his body.

Sitting opposite him, Spencer noted that she wore a neat grey blouse and a black pencil skirt that, had she been standing, would have made her look even taller than she already was; something like six feet, he estimated. Most of her hair was pulled back into a practical bun, but he guessed that it wasn't all cut to the same length, because several strands had fallen out around her face. It had a very pleasing effect, throwing the natural symmetry of her face just off balance enough to make her physical appearance strikingly appealing.

Along with her go-bag, she had a hard, black plastic case that was 42 inches long that made Spencer a little uncomfortable: her rifle case. It was impeccably clean and undamaged; it looked as though it was in the same condition she had bought it in.

_Type A personality with a possible touch of OCD or mild mysophobia_, thought Spencer.

She was currently looking over crime-scene photos in the file they had given her, a little frown puckering the space between her eyebrows.

"See anything useful yet?" asked Morgan, who had been eyeing Agent Gabor since her arrival. For some reason Spencer didn't like that, though he couldn't quite pinpoint why.

"No," she replied, still frowning, "And I'm not going to. These are all photos of the victims and the areas directly around them," she shuffled through the pictures, emphasizing her point, "I'm going to need to physically see each location to figure out where he might have been and how he planned the trajectory of the shot."

Hotch, who had been listening in, took the opportunity to delegate tasks. "All right, once we get there, I want you," he looked at Prentiss, "and Rossi to go to the police station and start re-interviewing witnesses. Reid, you, Morgan and Gabor will go to the most recent scene and see if you can find anything that might point to who this guy is or add to his MO. I'm going to accompany Prentiss and Rossi. Try to get some rest before we get there. We don't have much time, so I need everyone at their best."

Spencer nodded along with the rest of the team. What Hotch hadn't said was that there was, if the UNSUB stuck to the pattern, going to be another murder by the time they arrived. The thought weighed on Spencer; he was going to be one of the first people to see the new victim. Even after eight years in the BAU, he hadn't figured out how to deal with what he saw on the job every day. He didn't think anyone had.

The team drifted off to separate corners of the aircraft, leaving him and Agent Gabor as close to alone as was possible. He immediately felt awkward. He had been planning to take a nap as Hotch had suggested, but Gabor didn't look like she was at all tired and Spencer didn't like the idea of her watching him sleep.

She was looking out the window, the frown still set firmly in place. He wondered if he should start a conversation, and, if so, how. She didn't look like the most easy person to talk to, glaring out at the darkened sky like that. What did normal people talk about, anyway? Spencer knew how to talk to the team; he'd just say something about the victim or UNSUB and someone would segue from there, but he didn't think that would work with this woman. He rapidly thought of all the interesting things he knew, and discovered most of them that weren't directly work-related, revolved around _Star Wars _or _Star Trek_. He wondered if Gabor would be interested in knowing that light sabers were really just fiberglass rods coated in a highly reflective paint (later computer enhanced, of course) or that Vulcans only mate every seven years during a ritual known as "Pon Farr" and, if it was not observed, could result in death.

Spencer was soon caught up in debating the merits of _Star Trek: The Original Series_ versus _Star Trek: __The Next Generation_, quickly forgetting his determination to start a conversation with the auxiliary agent. He decided, for the hundredth time, that _The Original Series_ was more effective in commenting on then-current societal issues, while _The Next Generation_ excelled at exploring the human condition. He was interrupted before he could begin ruminating on the amusing parallel between Spock and Data and their shared affinity for cats, not the mention the fact that Data's cat, Spot, switched both colours and genders during the course of the show, and the android never seemed to notice.

"Are you alright?" asked Gabor, looking up at Spencer from under her dark eyelashes.

It took him a moment to register her voice. "Mmh?" he said, cleverly.

"Are you okay?" she repeated, "You look like you're concentrating really hard on something that bothers you…"

"Uh… No, no, I was just… Uh, wondering if you were born in France," babbled Spencer, blurting out the first thing that he thought of that didn't concern Star Trek. "'Gabor.' It's French, isn't it?"

She looked mildly amused, and raised an eyebrow. "Romanian, actually," she said, "I was born in Germany, though," one side of her mouth quirked upwards slightly, "I can't read my birth certificate."

"Because it's in German?"

"Because it's written in German, yes."

He gave her a quizzical look.

"I can speak German fluently," she explained, "I can't read it, though. All those silent letters…"

Spencer nodded, missing her weak attempt at humour. "Do you speak Romanian, too?"

"Yes, along with a Roma dialect of Romani. Romanian, I can write. My father taught me," she paused for a moment, considering, then added, "My name means 'gypsy.'"

By this point, Spencer was feeling pretty good about where his inadvertent conversation starter had taken them. She was telling him the etymology of her name, and therefore about herself, and wasn't giving him dirty looks about it. "We had a case involving Romani gypsies, once. They were families finding child-brides for their sons. They followed little girls home, murdered their families and kidnapped the girls. It was pretty traumatizing for those kids. Worst case of Stockholm Syndrome I've ever seen, too." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Spencer knew he'd blown it. The dark look was back, and she violently blew air out of her nose.

"My mother spent the first two years after I was born trying to convince my father to leave Europe to escape the racism. She didn't want me to have to grow up being tormented for being half Roma. We immigrated to the U.S. when I was two and a half. My parents decided it wasn't much better here, so they moved us to Canada soon after."

Spencer looked at his hands, which were fidgeting with his pen. "Sorry," he mumbled, before trying to change the subject. "Your given name isn't Romanian…"

She allowed herself to be guided away from the touchy subject, but her mood didn't lighten. "German. Means 'wave' or 'she came from the water.' Based on a folktale."

Something piqued Spencer's memory and he forgot the uncomfortable situation. "Yeah, yeah, my mother read something like that to me when I was five…" he thought for a moment, trying to remember, "Ondines, or Undines, are soulless water nymphs. They gain souls by marrying a man and having his child, but if he's unfaithful, she punishes him by cursing him with the 'Ondine's curse'; a curse that would make him stop breathing as soon as he fell asleep. The medieval Europeans blamed Ondines for congenital central hypoventilation syndrome or CCHS, an extremely rare-"

"Respiratory disorder," finished Gabor, still looking irritated, "I know. It's a form of sleep apnea wherein suffers lose autonomic control of breathing while sleeping. They die if it goes untreated."

Spencer returned to examining his pen. He knew he was making her feel uncomfortable and ashamed of her past, but he didn't know how to stop it. In turn, it was making him feel bad about his social inabilities.

She huffed heavily, like she was not only annoyed, but sad, too. "I know what I am, Dr. Reid," she whispered, "I'm going to get some sleep. …Over there." She grabbed her rifle case, and moved to the other side of the plane.

Spencer nodded, too embarrassed and afraid of shoving his foot farther down his throat to speak. Once she was safely away from him, he leaned his head against the side of plane and stared vacantly out the window until he fell asleep.

* * *

A/N: I'd just like to mention that I was not impressed with season 4, episode 13, "Bloodline" because of the way it portrayed the Romani people. The Romani do, in fact, face enormous discrimination based on racial lines in Europe (though I do realize that not everyone in Europe feels this way), and that episode portrayed them in a very biased and unkind light. Contrary to whatever the writers of that episode may think, Criminal Minds is not only aired in the U.S., and it disgusts me that they would write such horrible things about such strongly misunderstood people. I simply don't understand how such an intelligent show can perpetuate misunderstandings and hatred.

And, once again, thank you to everyone who reviewed. You're all lovely people!


	4. Chapter 4

"_We say that the hour of death cannot be forecast, but when we say this we imagine that hour as placed in an obscure and distant future. It never occurs to us that it has any connection with the day already begun or that death could arrive this same afternoon, this afternoon which is so certain and which has every hour filled in advance." – Marcel Proust_

Yukie Wakahisa was a walker. Despite the fact that she lived in the middle of downtown San Francisco, one of the hilliest cities in the country, she insisted on walking everywhere. She loved the energy that coursed through her as she navigated the steep slopes of the earth. She loved being outside, with the sun shining on her face; she loved seeing people go about their business on their way to wherever they were going. She loved being one of them.

On that particular day she was walking to her church, which was located, somewhat ironically, on the edge of the Castro district. Her desire to go was in part to volunteer with the church's homeless program, but mostly because one of her friends had promised to exhibit the traditional mask she had brought back from Venice, Italy. The idea of the exotic mask, and the stories surrounding it, excited the teenager.

Yukie was a naturally happy person, lighting up rooms wherever, and whenever, she entered them. Her sunny smile and buoyant laughter almost always spread to anyone in the vicinity when she unleashed them. She was not exceptionally bright or academically minded, but her interest in books and the arts made her a constant joy to her parents.

Arriving at her church, she admired the building, smiling brightly at it before going in. It was a large, square building with a squat, cross-attired dome on the top. It's fresh whiteness was almost a relief contrasted against the vividly coloured buildings surrounding it, but not quite. Yukie loved the chiaroscuro in the neighborhood.

The inside of the church was, like the outside, white, but it had red carpeting instead of concrete covering the floor. A balcony stretched around three sides of the interior, with the entrance directly beneath the center. Pews were scattered everywhere and windows punctuated the back of upper floor, looking out on to the blue building behind the church. A rich, ornamental pipe organ decorated the platform in front of the podium.

Yukie entered the building, signed the volunteer form offered to her by Mrs. Bates, and began looking for her friend amongst the 20 or so people who were already there. A giant grin spread over her face when she spotted the other girl.

Yukie never made it to her friend, however. For Yukie, everything stopped. She did not hear the soft whizz of the shot and she did not see the looks of horror. She did not feel pain. She just stopped.

* * *

Ondine woke from an uncomfortable sleep as the jet approached San Francisco International Airport. She jolted up suddenly from a half-remembered dream, the dying face of her father still shimmering in front of her eyes. It had been a recurring discomfort since he'd passed when she was nine years old; the only part she remembered was her father telling her that he loved her in Romani before convulsing and falling over. She always woke up before he hit the ground.

Over the past few years, the dream had altered slightly from what she remembered as a child; in the new dream, her father had bright, clear blue eyes that stared at her with a sad desperation as he toppled. In reality, her father had possessed warm, brown eyes that were never filled with anything but kindness and love for his family, even as he lay dying. The change was the result of something she had seen, somewhere she had been… Ondine quickly forced the thought into oblivion. She didn't think about that.

She shuddered uncomfortably and looked out the window, a move that turned out to be a mistake. The decent into San Francisco was terrifying. The runway stretched out over the bay and, though she was by no means afraid of water, the fact that it looked as though they were descending into the sea gave her the chills.

The sun was gleaming brightly into the jet, lighting the interior with a cheery glow. Ondine looked away from the window, trying to think of something other than the blue expanse below. Her eyes wandered to the scene of her humiliation the night before. Dr. Reid was still there, fast asleep, the sun shining on his young face. Even from her position on the other side of the aircraft, Ondine could see each of his eyelashes outlined by the light. She noted that sleep shaved several more years off his already youthful demeanor; she had thought that he was her age, 26, or slightly older, but seeing him sleeping made her question that perception.

When she had moved last night, she had ended up sitting next to SSA Morgan, which she had concluded ideal, because, instead of talking or sleeping, he seemed to only be interested in listening to his mp3 player. Ondine was fine with that. Making pointless small talk was not her forté. She had pulled out a book and read until Morgan fell asleep. This morning, his head was bent at an awkward angle and his mouth hung open. He breathed quite loudly, too, never quite snoring, but getting as close as someone could without actually committing the act. Ondine decided she liked him. Sleeping, anyway. His not-quite snore and expressive eyebrows were charming.

The gentle bump of the wheels hitting the runway woke everyone else up, and Ondine was soon swept up in tidying the plane and finding her belongings with them. Sleepy "good mornings" were passed around, along with stale muffins and old coffee, the latter of which Ondine refused. She was an obstinate tea-drinker.

Once they got through security at the airport, there was a local detective with several officers waiting for them. "You must be the FBI," he said, shaking Hotchner's hand, "I'm detective Riley. I was in charge of this case before you guys were called in. If you need anything, I'm your man." Ondine sensed the resentment in his words, and felt a pang of sympathy for him. He probably thought it meant he was failing to have the FBI called in.

Hotch nodded politely. "Thank you. We will. Now, if you don't mind, we'd like to get started-"

"You don't want to go to the hotel?" Riley interrupted.

"No," said Hotchner, speaking for the team, "We had sufficient rest on the plane. I'd like for us to start right away."

The detective looked a little deflated. It was obvious he had been hoping to get even more of a head start on the team. "All right," he said, turning, "This way."

* * *

Arrival at the scene was a relief to Spencer. He'd been crammed into the back of a tiny police cruiser with Morgan and Gabor for an uncomfortable twenty minutes, Gabor in the middle. Her rifle had been stretched across their laps; she'd refused to put it in the back, something Morgan had bafflingly found amusing. It made the whole experience just that much more unpleasant. It had had the negative side effect of masking the fact that her hips had been flush against his the entire time, and that her knees had gently bumped his while going around corners more than once. He couldn't help but think that, based on the softness of her hips, her not insignificant height and her approximate weight, she probably had a body mass index of roughly 20 percent; on the low side of the normal range. He guessed she was, or had been very recently, a fitness enthusiast.

Upon entering the church, she immediately went to the body. She pulled the sheet it had been covered with back, inspected the wound and spoke quietly to the kneeling coroner. Spencer absent-mindedly watched her work, the smooth flow of her movements intriguing him. How could anyone maneuver a crime scene so gracefully in such impractical clothes? An amused look from Morgan made Spencer realize he was staring. He immediately felt embarrassed, and looked away.

"Well, well, time to start playin' the field, Pretty Boy?" the older, sexier agent whispered as Spencer brushed by him, heading farther into the building. Spencer liked Morgan, a lot, but sometimes the teasing made him want to melt into the floorboards. And this was certainly not the time to be thinking about… that.

Spencer frowned, trying to focus on the task at hand; Riley was saying something to them. The dark corner of his mind that he was trying to ignore noted that Gabor had disappeared.

"Yukie Wakahisa," the detective said, standing over the body, "16-year-old Japanese church member who was here to volunteer with the homeless program. According to witnesses, she had just signed in with Mrs. Bates over there," he indicated a large, severe looking woman standing with the other 17 witnesses, "when she got shot."

The dead girl was facing the right balcony; her body twisted awkwardly, a smile frozen eerily on her face. There wasn't a lot that could rattle Spencer anymore, but looking at that girl did. He almost wanted to ask the coroner to cover her up. Instead, he and Morgan walked over to talk to Mrs. Bates. They didn't learn much, only that the girl was sweet natured and had turned to face the pews in front of the door when she died, not towards the right.

"So, she spun as she fell," said Morgan.

"Yeah, about 60 degrees," agreed Spencer, calculating the angles in seconds, "Which means the shot must have come from above the door in the balcony somewhere."

Morgan squinted at the aforementioned area. "We need to get up there."

The two men walked back to the entrance and climbed the stairs that lead to the second floor. They found Gabor standing on one of the seats shaking a window.

They stared at her, surprised to see her. "What are you doing?" demanded Morgan, irritated with her for meddling with the already damaged church property.

The tall woman paused and looked at him, her dark green eyes completely impassive. "The job I was brought in to do," she said.

"And damaging church property is part of that?" asked Morgan, still annoyed.

"Did you see the body?" snapped Gabor, giving up and stepping down from her perch.

"Yeah," Spencer said, trying to interject himself into the conversation before things got more tense, "She spun-"

"60 degrees," said Gabor, ignoring him, "Which means the shooter had to have been shooting from this direction."

"So he was in the balcony," retorted Morgan, crossing his muscular arms, threateningly.

_Uh oh_, thought Spencer.

Gabor snorted and rolled her eyes. "Did anyone see him?" she asked.

When Morgan didn't say anything, she turned her pine eyes on Spencer. He couldn't meet her gaze.

"Did you even ask?"

Once again, she was met with silence.

"That's what I thought," she said, before continuing, "Now, it is possible that he was in the balcony, but highly unlikely, unless he's a complete armature, which we know he's not because of his marksmanship," she pointed at the window she had been rattling, "These windows open. He was probably on that building and shot through the open window," she shut her eyes, and her face became very drawn, "That's what I would have done."

Spencer admitted it was the most probable situation, but Morgan refused to accept defeat. "I'm still going to interview the witnesses," he said, obstinately.

Gabor shrugged. She didn't look like she cared too much, but Spencer still felt bad for her; she was having a lot of trouble making friends on the team. First she put up with his social gracelessness and now Morgan was being rude and stubborn. He decided to try to salvage their besmirched reputations.

As Morgan turned to head back downstairs, he loudly asked, "Hey, guys, after we're done here, do you want to get something to eat?"

Spencer's nerves nearly got the better of him as both their eyes critically examined him. Morgan was first to respond. "Reid, we've got to get to the station and help with the profile, man."

He cringed inwardly. "Yeah, I know, I'm just really hungry…"

Gabor's steady gaze was unreadable as she spoke. "It's fine with me," she said, "I know a pretty good place close to here."

He wondered how she knew the restaurants in the area, but didn't have time to ask.

Morgan raised his eyebrows in defeat. "It'll have to be quick," he said before he stomped off downstairs.

Relief flooded Spencer. He really wanted this woman to like them.


End file.
